People spend hours preening themselves in mirrors and, given half the chance probably apes and elephants would too. A mirror works because the atoms inside it catch light and throw it back at you. And voila, you get your outward reflection. Yet watching someone in a mirror tells you a lot about their behavior –but little about their motivation. Horses, however are uncannily accurate when it comes to assessing motivation. Because they mirror the neurons in your brain. When horses connect with humans, there is an unlimited capacity for love and compassion and communication. In fact, leaders from Google, Apple, Stanford and HP work with my client to elevate their leadership skills, business goals and ability for authentic communication and mirroring.Whether you are need to heel or need to rule the next IOT start-up —here are our top 4 reasons why a horses make for better mirrors.

1) Mirrors can only reflect how you look. Horses were born to know you –and reflect how you feel.

2) Did you know your mirror is only 400 years new? A horse has evolved over 55 million years and can help us re-connect with all life without ever uttering a word.

3) Bad haircut? Double chin? Lipstick on the teeth? Mirrors create immediate stress for those not happy with the reflection. Horses on the other hand, can immediately reduce stress for those who they reflect and connect with.

4) You can’t fool God –nor you can you fool a horse. The natural modes of communication for horses are body language and the state of the spirit. Horses can actually show you want you look like on the inside to others.

So when was the last time you attended therapy or a team-building exercise —where the non-verbal was stronger then the verbal? A horse can help you become more aware of your self. And for a hard-driver bay area CMO like myself, a low-tech dose of horse compassion and introspection is remarkably powerful to remind us of who we are.

Those old marketing campaigns that follow the “spray-and-pray” approach are wasteful and rapidly becoming road-kill in a bygone marketing era. We live in a connected world now. We can predict behavior based on buying patterns and personas. Stop betting it all and stop getting it wrong. PPC is going to continue to gain importance in the continued reign of data driven marketing. Here are four reasons to learn how to master it.

Reason #1 –It’s a sure thing –pay only when someone clicks

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising puts your advertisements in front of carefully selected targets that have previously expressed interests in your products and services. PPC is unlike any other customer acquisition strategy. PPC audiences are actively seeking out the products and services that are of interest to them and are actively receptive to receiving information. Best of all, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your advertisement. You now have the ability to both target the right people at the right time and deliver exactly what they seek without relying on luck.

Do you know if your campaign is working? Marketing campaigns that follow the spray-and-pray approach are often wasteful. Knowing the ROI of your marketing efforts is key to both long and short term success and PPC allows you to track every click, every impression with pinpoint accuracy. PPC is the laser guided missile that zeros in on your target. With every PPC campaign you run, you can confidently know what works, what doesn’t work, and constantly adapt to your customer and your business goals. PPC campaigns can even dynamically adapt and change an advertisement before it is displayed to get the highest relevance and resonance. No more guessing needed.

How long does it take to see results from PPC? In most cases you should see results from your campaign in under a day, most likely in an hour—or the time it takes to bake an apple pie. As soon as you set up your PPC campaigns, your targeted advertisements will begin getting impressions in an hour (depending on several factors). PPC also works with small budgets, it’s a powerful medium where you can get started with a limited budget to test the waters. Remember, you still only pay if the user clicks on your advertisement. And if the results aren’t delicious you can bake up something new.

Reason #3 –It’s command central –guiding insights into action

PPC partners well with other Internet marketing approaches. Does your SEO team want to know the valuable keywords that convert the most? PPC is the fastest way to know. Want to know where your customers are in their buying cycle? PPC has the answer. Want to run some tests on a landing page? A custom PPC campaign can have you up and running tests quickly to inform not just your PPC campaigns but also your email marketing and SEO efforts. With a better understanding of consumer psychology you will find your prequalified prospects and leads at the right place and at the right time with the right message. You control every aspect of the campaign, the budget, the landing page, the keywords, the time and even the device in which your advertisement will appear.

Ready to roll the dice with all odds in your favor? We are here to help guide you. –jane

I’m always on the hunt for the web trends that matter. That inspire. That make a company hum.
Here are my faves for the first half of 2016 that go beyond responsive web design and performance.

1) Cooler and better navigation or menu design.
2) Parallax scrolling (yet not as long as last year).
3) Clever and relevant content that is highly narrative.
4) Cool ghost buttons –they attract attention in a subtle way without cluttering the design.
5) The rise of performance with video –slow websites are really shameless.
6) Carefully studied UX focused on delighting the user.
7) Scrolling not clicking –perfect for sublime storytelling.
8) Material design with dynamic elements that remind us of paper and ink.
9) Less stock photography and more grit and realism.
10) A lot more white space then in prior years.

2015 is here in Sunny Silicon Valley. Telemedicine, The Internet of Things, Fast-Laning, Kiva Robots, Smart Homes, Computing Everywhere, Wearables, 3-D Priting and Automous Driving Cars. It’s all coming and it’s all connected. And we think it will all come down to User Experiece and User Interface Design. C’mon people it has to be simple. We hope 2015 is the brightest most simplest year for our clients. Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you creating wondrous things and wondrous connections that have never been.

We recently learned about the 5 steps to reduce the chemical footprint of plastic. It was quite remarkable really.

By switching the type of plastic one company kept 700,000 pounds of high-concern chemicals — the equivalent in weight of a Boeing 747 airplane — out of the environment.

We value a close loop system as well as re-grinding and using post-consumer recycled content to significantly reduce the chemical footprint. From Apple to Estee Lauder, we have a front row seat as one of our clients goes to task.